Rossum Gender Roles

Karl Capek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots follows an unexpected theme of gender. Even though the main aspect of the book is robots who have no real gender the book explores societies ideas of masculinity but more prominently femininity. While this work was published in 1921 it’s misogynist ideas and language cannot be overlooked.
The only real female character in the entire book is Helena Glory, daughter of an influential businessman. At first her value comes only from who her father is and then once she takes of her vail only from her beauty. This is clear throughout the entire play in the way they not only talk to, but talk about Helena. “Domin: Marry me. Helena: No! What are you thinking of? Domin: (looks at watch) There are three minutes

left. If you don’t marry me you’ll have to marry one of the other five. Helena: Oh for God’s sake! Why would I marry and of you? Domin: Because they’ll ask you one after the other” (33). In this exchange, we clearly see that Domin is almost forcing her to marry him or one of the others. Even with her horrified replies he is completely unmoved. He even looks at his watch and tells her he only had three minutes left to decide something that would change her life forever. They don’t see her as a real person just someone that any one of them could marry. It is only Domin who ask her because he is the director of the factory and has more power than the others. What is worse is that Helena even after her repeated denials and obvious distress is in the end bullied into marrying Domin, showing that she has no real will of her own.
In many other scenes, Helena is painted as an overly emotional female that never understands anything and is always asking her male counterparts an endless stream of stupid questions. The way they disregard her and her voice solely because she is a woman is further evident when they are discussing what they should do concerning the manuscript. “Helena: Harry, please… Domin: Wait, Helena. We’re talking about a serious matter here. What do you think, lads, to sell it or destroy it? Fabry?” (83). Here not only does he tell Helena to stop talking as this is a serious matter but he then refers to his male colleagues to see what they think. Helena isn’t only his wife but also someone who is directly affected by the problem at hand. That denial to let her speak and claim that it is because it’s a serious matter shows how they don’t see that she has any real value or voice of her own. Anything that she could say in a serious matter is completely disregarded as the foolish musings of a women.
These two instances as well as many others in the book show the underlying theme of not just gender but of the female stereotype. Throughout the whole of the book she is written as a vapid woman who knows nothing of the world, has no voice or will of her own, and is overly sentimental in all instances.